Breaking down the splits that define the Astros’ season

PITTSBURGH – Take the Astros out of Houston, and you’re taking pretty much everything out of the Astros. Hitting takes a hit, pitching takes a bigger hit, and the road version of the Astros is very different than what is actually a good home team despite the 32-48 overall record.

As the Astros have piled up a 9-29 road record to go with a 23-19 showing at home, almost nobody is immune from the splits among the regulars and starting pitchers.

Jose Altuve and Brian Bogusevic are the only two of the eight regulars hitting better on the road than at Minute Maid Park, while Wandy Rodriguez is the only pitcher with a better road ERA than a home ERA. There is no regular starter on the staff with a home ERA worse than 4, but beyond Rodriguez, there is none with a road ERA better than 6.

We’ll ask Brad Mills today how the team is trying to combat this for a note in Wednesday’s paper, but until then, here are the very exaggerated splits, using on-base plus slugging for hitters and ERA for pitchers.

Player

Home

Away

Diff.

Johnson

.870

.576

294

Lowrie

.915

.711

204

Lee

.821

.642

179

Castro

.754

.661

93

Schafer

.668

.606

62

Martinez

.742

.704

38

Bogusevic

.634

.657

-23

Altuve

.743

.837

-94

Team

.732

.654

78

NL

.738

.699

39

Pitchers’ splits

Pitcher

Home

Away

Diff.

Rodriguez

3.60

3.45

-0.15

Lyles

3.91

6.67

+2.76

Happ

3.75

6.82

+3.07

Harrell

1.99

6.36

+4.37

Norris

2.27

7.55

+5.28

Team

3.42

5.64

+2.22

NL

3.77

4.17

+0.40

And while we’re talking splits, here’s a breakdown of the Astros’ troubles against lefthanded pitching, with righthanded hitter Carlos Lee curiously having an enormous reverse split.

Keep in mind that these players won’t average out to anywhere near the average of their splits because obviously there are more righties than lefties to face. Also there’s Mills’ use of matchup-based lineups. So Jordan Schafer and Brian Bogusevic, for example, would have considerably fewer at-bats against lefties than the average hitter.